Under Armour on Monday introduced its advertising campaign for this year's football season, clearly staking claim to its core audience: the high school athlete. The Baltimore Sun reports that former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, an early Under Armour adopter, had a hand in the TV commercial that debuted on YouTube. The commercial was filmed in Baltimore, location of Under Armour's headquarters.

Nike, through events such as last week's The Opening, would assert that its share of a high school football player's attention span is just as strong as Under Armour's.

Brand loyalty: Ya know how Nike busts a gasket, veins bulging out of its forehead and neck, fingers poised to dial up and complain to the National Football League office, when NFL players prance around in practice gear with logos other than the Swoosh?

Bounce for the buck: Andy Murray's Wimbledon victory quantified itself as the first win by a British male in 77 years. How else may the victory be measured, asks Nick Westby of the Yorkshire Post. And, while we're at it, who's really raking it in on the tennis circuit? The Daily Mail lists the Top 10; the top five are Nike endorsers.

Sneakerholic: Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie is a sneakerhead of the most serious, somewhat disturbing variety.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jeremy Guthrie's obsession started with one box -- one pair of sneakers -- when he was 10 years old.

The Royals' hurler can't recall the exact circumstances, only that his dad decided to give in and buy Jeremy and his two brothers each a pair of Air Jordans -- Michael Jordan's signature basketball sneaker.

He'd had some before, a pair of Sky Jordan Air 1s when he was 7 -- "I don't know how many people know," Guthrie says, "but the little sizes used to say Sky Jordan instead of Air Jordan above the wings." -- but these would be his first pair of the real thing.

Jeremy's brothers each chose the Jordan IV, but Jeremy waited for the brand-new V to release.

Part of it was proximity. Guthrie grew up in Ashland, Ore., and Nike, with its headquarters in nearby Beaverton, was such a prominent part of business and culture in the northwest. Much of it, too, was Jordan himself, as his popularity skyrocketed when Guthrie was a kid in the late 1980s.

Mostly, though, it was the shoes. That first pair. That was all it took.

"I was really hooked by then," Guthrie says. "Mostly because Michael Jordan was my favorite athlete. I was collecting basketball cards and stuff, which made me get into him even more … and naturally the shoes came next."

Nearby Beaverton? Never mind, this is a great read.

I'm back: Lance Armstrong is going to ride later this month in part of The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), sponsored by the Des Moines Register. This is not a goodwill tour, though Armstrong says in this Daily Mail story that he'd welcome a high five. On the other hand, "If you want to shoot me the bird, that's OK too. I'm a big boy, and so I made the bed, I get to sleep in it."

And though Tour de France officials and its competitors really, really want people to believe otherwise, Armstrong, dropped by Nike and by cancer organization Livestrong, says right here the Tour cannot be won without little helpers.

Profile: Super sports agent Casey Wasserman seems to have built a career predicated on the introduction of, "Hi, I am not Lew Wasserman." In this profile, The New York Times portrays Casey Wasserman as far different from his studio mogul grandfather.

Globally speaking: From the world of product sourcing, we bring to you this story from The
Wall Street Journal about Asics "overhauling its oversight of suppliers
in Cambodia and (developing) a plan to compensate families of two
workers who died in a recent accident at one of its factories there;"
and a story from The Financial Express that says, "The world's renowned
shoe brands are opting for Bangladesh to source their footwear because
of rising cost and environment concerns of Chinese products;" and
finally, a highly opinionated piece from AlterNet that forecasts a
conflagration of global proportions in Indonesia based on the growing
chasm between the haves and have-nots. One stat claimed in the story: "The combined wealth of the country’s 40 richest individuals equaled that of its 60 million poorest citizens."